Finding a material that could replace silicon is a critical task in nanoelectronics. For many years, graphene has appeared promising. However, its potential was compromised along the way because of destructive processing techniques and the absence of a new electronics paradigm to adopt it. The need for the next major nanoelectronics platform is greater than ever, as silicon is almost at its limit in supporting faster computation.
As fundamental physical limitations emerge and threaten to obstruct progress, scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) and the University of Tianjin have made a significant step toward bringing graphene-based electronics out of the lab and into the real world. Graphene is a replacement for silicon in electronics.
The strength of graphene, according to Walter de Heer, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology's School of Physics, rests in its flat, two-dimensional structure, which is kept together by the strongest chemical bonds known.
In a Hackster report, de Heer said that graphene could be downsized considerably more than silicon, allowing for much smaller devices that operate at higher speeds and generate much less heat. In theory, this allows for the packing of more devices onto a single chip of graphene than silicon can.
Researchers could create a layer of graphene, etch it using electron beam lithography, and then weld it to silicon carbide using chips manufactured of those materials, producing a useful nanoelectronics device.
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